Local WWI soldier remembered

Corby Borough Council marks the 100th anniversary of WWI soldier, George Edward Binder, today (Thursday 5th March) as part of the local authority’s continued WWI commemorations.

George Edward Binder was born in Stanion in 1896. His father was Harry Edward Binder from Stanion and his mother was Elizabeth Lucy Binder (nee Drage) from Leicester. The couple married in 1891. By the 1901 Census, the family had relocated to Aston, Birmingham.

George Edward Binder was a Private (35902) in the 5th (Service) Battalion, Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Royal Berkshire) Regiment. He was resident in Birmingham when he enlisted.

The 5th (Service) Battalion was formed in Reading on 25th August 1914 under the command of the 35th Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Division. The Battalion landed in France on 31st May 1915. The Battalion transferred to the 36th Brigade on 6th February 1918.

Private George Edward Binder was killed on 5th April 1918 on The Somme. He is remembered on the Pozieres Memorial.

The Pozieres Memorial relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918.

The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918. The Corps and Regiments most largely represented are The Rifle Brigade with over 600 names, The Durham Light Infantry with approximately 600 names, the Machine Gun Corps with over 500, The Manchester Regiment with approximately 500 and The Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery with over 400 names.

The memorial encloses Pozieres British Cemetery, Plot II of which contains original burials of 1916, 1917 and 1918, carried out by fighting units and field ambulances. The remaining plots were made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the cemetery, the majority of them of soldiers who died in the Autumn of 1916 during the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme, but a few represent the fighting in August 1918.

There are now 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,380 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There is also 1 German soldier buried here.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner.